The Local Hardware Store...

After a couple months of being stuck under a 4000lb black dog, I actually had a good day today .

I managed to escape from work for a three day weekend and left my pager in the car. My first project started off as repairing the leaking faucet in the garage. Through extreme scope creep, it turned into an all day adventure involving replacing all the water valves in the house .

Fortunately, I ended up making three trips to the local town hardware store rather than Home Despot. I ended up spending about an hour talking to one of the guys there about the store's 98 year old cash register, rotary phones, Ford pickups, James May's Reassembler show, old Swedish cars languishing in my yard, etc.

I could have accomplished the same trips in ~10 minutes each at HD/Lowes, saved a couple bucks, put my debit card in the chip reader at the self checkout, and gone about my day. However, the experience was about 50000% better.

I knew by the title there was going to be a picture of the cash register at Medina hardware

The guy that ran the hardware store in my town died late last year at 91. Not really sure what the fate of the 116 year old store is going to be now but they appear to be permanently closed.

I remember as a kid you could buy all kinds of interesting stuff in there and the owner was always awesome to interact with while I was growing up. I miss walking out of the store with a paper bag full of nails and looking at old guns he took in on trade.

Once I was at Home Depot and the guy in electrical told me the odd switch cover can probably be found at my local hardware store. I told him HD put them all out of business.

The local store here in town closed for good 10+ years ago, pretty much immediately after Lowe's (and eventually Home Depot) came to town

Ace is the place. At least locally since the nearest Lowes or HD are 15 miles away.

We had a locally-owned small hardware store that had more useful stuff in one small store than any HD I've been in. Unfortunately, the owner died a few years ago and the family just didn't feel up to running it themselves. I order much more stuff from the Internet since it closed, but miss the "oh, we have that" experience at the local place.

I don't intend for this to divulge into a political argument, but I do wish there was some way that we could base taxes on local businesses by the role they play in the character of towns and neighborhoods. I feel like we should do whatever we can to keep the small guys around. Whether its a hardware store, a small local grocery, a local mechanic, a cobbler, stuff like that.

My local hardware store is rural king or ace. The old small town hardware store in ohio city burnt down a few years ago.

We have Burke Bros here in Raleigh, established in 1939. I try to give them my business whenever I can.

We've lost a few over the decades, but I've still got one that's about 10-15 minutes away. Well-stocked, knowledgeable staff, great for everything from the mainstream to the most obscure bits for some oddball one-off project. I'm amazed by how many strange things I've asked for that they actually had on the shelf.

Not a hardware store but growing up we had a local electronic parts store about two blocks from home. Had been there forever. Had to have close to every single electronic component ever created in stock and on the shelves. I went in there a lot as a youngster as the old man was really nice to me, he knew dad pretty well, he wasn't nice to the other hood rats though. In the early 90's he got shot during a robbery attempt (he lived in the store), didn't kill him but it was enough that he sold out and retired somewhere. The neighborhood had turned to E36 M3 by then anyway.

No independent stores around here. Just small chains like Ace and True Value. The Ace is only a 3 minute walk down the road.

We still have a small, family-owned HW store in the tiny town where our cabin is located. I try to shop there at least once every weekend we are out there. They don't have a huge stock, but they do have one or two of seemingly everything.

Last time I was out, I bought a basic crock pot. Price? $29. Could I have driven 20 minutes to get it 30% cheaper? Yeah. Is it worth $10 to me to have them there to order deliveries of construction lumber to my house, identify my weird pump part, and ask how the neighbor's mom is doing? Oh yeah.

Margie

In reply to Brian:

Those guys are locally owned franchises so they're still local-ish despite the name.

We have an Ace here in town as well as a Tractor Supply. I buy everything from the Ace unless they don't have it. I've probably spent 200 bucks there in the last six months in loose hardware plus all my Sthil equipment came from there. They love it when I walk in...

Tractor Supply is the second stop with HD and Lowes last. I hate driving into Stroudsburg.

I'll miss Altemose's though.

15 or 20 years ago, I broke my yoyo string. The proprietor of Mayfair Hardware didn't even have to move fron his post behind the till. Reached over, grabbed a pack of three, charged me a buck and all was good.

My town has both a Lowes and Home Depot, but the privately owned Ace Hardware store is thriving. The current family has run the store for 60 years, having bought the existing store in '57. It's cool to walk through, a mis-mash of three or four buildings or additions joined together over the years as they grew. They have all of the odd stuff that you will never find at a big box. Need a metric bolt with a weird thread pitch in stainless? It's probably there. They are doing well because of their service. They could never compete on pricing, so they service the hell out of their customers. Lots of friendly cashiers- I'm guessing teenagers on the weekends, that no one else hires anymore- who do a great job. Leaving the older experienced guys to wander the isles helping customers. Terrific service. You can tell by each person there that they care about their jobs. Unlike the big boxes of appathy across town.

I do miss my old local "Yard Bird's" chain. Home Depot bought it out just to get into one city that had a moratorium on big box stores. They bought the whole chain to get that one location. They tried to capitalize on Yard Bird's local reputation, and opened a few "Yard Birds By Home Depot" stores, but they ruined it and closed them all during the recession.

We are lucky around here. There is an Ace about 2 miles from me and another about 15 miles up the road plus a True Value between them. All 3 have knowledgeable people working there and have a good assortment of weird stuff. The best part is if you need help they don't instantly say "we don't have that" they say "if we can't find it on the shelf we can get it for you". It is so nice to have a place that has people who care about customer service, well worth the extra price per item if there even is a difference.

I have a do it best franchise 10 minutes from my house, Lowe's and home Depot are a few further. The do it best always has what I'm looking for and they sell my favorite drywall anchors. I will shop at Lowe's or home Depot, but all things being equal it is the do it best or Menards which is an hour away across a toll bridge

We had an independent hardware store that had everything. Cluttered as hell, but they could find it. It burned to the ground years ago. The owner rebuilt it and it is now a True Value. Not as good as before, but still my preferred store.

the last really cool hardware store near me was sold a few years ago, the stock liquidated and the new owner tried to make it all nice and neat and orderly. He lasted 2 years. The old "Corson Brothers" store had EVERYTHING, but you either had to ask for it or search high and low on many dusty and crowded shelves.

There is still an old time store in the area, but it is a 20 mile drive two towns over. I do try to stop when I am in the area though

There used to be a great little independent hardware store just a few blocks away from me, Rex Hardware. It had been around since ~1930, and had been owned by the same husband and wife team since they bought it when he came home from WWII. He finally died, but she kept running the place for a number of years before finally retiring and closing the store. They had the old screw and nut and bolt bins, sold rope by the foot, fixed screen and storm windows, sharpened saws, etc. I loved that place.

Fortunately, there are still a few other good old time hardware stores within a few miles, plus a very well run Ace Hardware store. I can't remember the last time I had to go to one of the big box stores.

There's an Ace a mile from my house which I visit often. It's a great place with a fantastic stock of nuts, bolts, screws, washers, fine pitch threads including cad-plated Grade 8 fasteners, clips, clasps, hinges, pins, etc. etc. etc. And within 10-15 seconds of entering the place a knowledgeable employee will greet me and ask if I need assistance. It's definitely the place.

Our local store morphed into todays Ace.

Local owner moved to a new, larger building on the new arterial highway. Became a Tru Value, changed owners and switched to Ace

Our local place (Bunnell's) went out of business about 2 years ago after the original owner passed and his family couldn't, or didn't want to keep it going.

It's a shame, really, but atleast he wasn't run out of business by the big boxes. They had to outlive him.